I wonder, % wise, how many considered the white witch to be a major plot point when entering the forest? Because I didn't until I freed her, way way later ;P
I felt that it being a major plot point was completely obvious, but I do admit that I also ended up doing it much later than I was clearly supposed to have done. I found the trap cliff and I also got the hint about the location of the stashed spell being between the two bridges, but then I kind of left them to one side and went to deal with more accessible stuff.
That said, I didn't feel like it was purposeless at any point, I was just a lot more immediately focused on investigating the Immaculates than freeing the White Witch. It was only after I found Maradino's lair and realized that the solution to freeing the witch without killing the mushrooms wasn't there either that I thought to go back and check out that trapped hill.
Other than that I honestly found the whole forest pretty accessible and straightforward. The only bit where I got confused was not freeing the witch early on.
